College Football Betting Guide

by Dev Ops

August 25, 2015

College Football Betting Guide

Americans love college sports, especially college football, but the popularity still lags the NFL.

Millions of fans attend college football games annually across the nation and some college football stadiums pack in more fans than NFL stadiums. With such popularity – it’s no wonder millions is bet on NCAA football every year.

We can visit Las Vegas and bet with sportsbooks, but if you don’t live near Nevada, how are you going to place bets each week on college football action? The other option is to bet online with an offshore sportsbook.

Thousands of Americans bet online and many make a living out of it. In this guide we’re going to analyze the best CFB betting sites and I’ll teach new bettors how they can bet on college football online, including all of the bet types.

Best College Football Betting Sites

Here’s a list of the best college football sites – click on “Review” to read our full review.

5Dimes is the best option. Not only has 5Dimes been in business since 1996, but they have the widest range of betting markets for college sports. Plus, college football handicappers will get reduced juice on all straight markets.

All of the betting sites above accept Americans, plus offer mobile betting and live betting for college football.

Be sure to claim the bonuses available as well. Apart from 5Dimes reduced juice – the GTBets team have put together a few great promotions that run annually during the football season.

How to Bet on NCAA Football

Have you ever bet on the NFL? If you have – then you’re already prepared to wager on NCAA football.

However, I know a lot of viewers reading this guide have never bet on football and I’m going to explain the types of bets available. I recommend reading our standard betting guides if you need to learn how to understand odds.

There are over one hundred D1 schools in America competing in college football.

That means there are many games between two teams that aren’t even close to evenly matched. In the NFL it’s rare to see a double-digit point spread, but in college football, double-digits spreads are the norm.

In fact – some point spreads can exceed 50+ points in college football — with many topping 20+ points.

With that being said – point spreads are the most popular bet type in college football. Your aim is to predict whether the better team (Favorite) will win by the predetermined point spread or handicap against the worse team (Underdog).

Here’s an example: Alabama -24.5 (-110) vs. California +24.5 (-110).

The team with the negative spread or handicap is the favorite and has to cover the point spread. In this example, Bama is favored by -24.5 points and therefore they need to win the game by 25+ points or California wins the bet.

You can bet on a team just to win a game – this is known as a money line bet. However, in college football it’s normally not ideal unless you’re targeting an underdog that you believe will win or you’re betting on a small favorite.

In fact – most bookies don’t even offer ML odds on really big favorites like Alabama in our example.

The reasoning is simple – they don’t want casual bettors lining up 10+ outcome parlays with a bunch of big favorites that have a massive chance of winning. In college football the best teams rarely lose, so the bookies have to be cautious.

Lastly, you can bet on how many points will be scored in a CFB game by betting on the game total (over/under).

If the total is 45.5 points – your job is to predict whether both teams will score 46+ points or 45 or less points. These bets are all for a full game, but bookies also offer the same bet types for both halves (1H/2H) and all four quarters.

There are numerous other college football betting markets as well.

Two popular markets are futures bets and props bets. An example of a futures bet is betting on which team will win the BCS National Championship or which team will win the SEC or one of the other major conferences.

With futures bets – you place the wager well before the event. For example – you can bet on which team will win the BCS National Championship anytime of the year and the odds move regularly based on team news or market sentiment.

Another popular example of a futures bet is betting on how many regular season wins a college football team will have.

Prop bets aren’t overly popular and that’s partly because most bookies have limited props and because the betting limits are low. However, for casual bettors, there isn’t a more fun and exciting way to bet on college football.

With props you can bet on team or player performance. For example, you can bet on a RB rushing for over or under a posted total or you can bet on whether or not a defensive/special teams TD will be a scored in a game.

For nationally televised games, the options for prop bets are nearly endless.

Live betting is another option that has picked up steam in recent years. In fact, you can even bet in-play (live) on games using your mobile device now. However, most college football games will have very limited live markets to wager on.

Just like with props – live betting has better coverage when the game is being aired on national television.

Mobile Betting

You may have already placed a bet on your mobile device, but if not, you can bet on every sport, including NCAA football on your smartphone or tablet. The only requirement is that your mobile device is connected to the Internet.

Most US bookies use a web-app, which means most mobile phones and tablets are compatible. All of the college football sportsbooks we review are mobile compatible, which means you can bet at anytime, from practically anywhere.

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